Sweet peas (l-r) 'Bix', 'Pink Nines' and ‘Enchanté’

Dr. Keith Hammett is the world’s leading sweet pea breeder. I’ve always been a big fan of his varieties, and he’s made so many important steps forward including integrating the most recently discovered species – the red and yellow Lathyrus belinensis - into his breeding work.

This year I trialled seven of his varieties, some of which I’ve never grown before, and I was especially pleased with four of them. Just to be clear, seed was sown in late winter, they were grown in ordinary garden conditions, on a wigwam of bamboo canes, in a corner of the cutting garden just round the corner from here at boutique florist Foxtail Lilly.

‘Bix’
This has been outstanding, not so much for its productivity but for its wonderful cream colouring with the strong rose pink picotee.

‘Enchanté’
One of the few tri-coloured sweet peas, with pale cherry red standards, white at the base, and pale mauve-blue wings opening from yellow buds. A delightful soft combination.

‘Enigma’
I was really looking forward to the vertical magenta-pink stripe through each pale pink standard but found it much less clear than I expected. I’ll give it another try next year, in better conditions.

‘Nuance’
This is a two-tone pink with darker standard and paler wings, very pretty but not as striking as I’d expected.

‘Pink Nines’
Nine flowers per stem – yes really! I loved this for the long life of each stem, provided by its eight or nine flowers. We need this in other colours.

‘Route 66’
Gorgeous, nicely frilled, pink and white bicolour that was taller and more vigorous than any other sweet pea in the cutting garden. ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ is similar, but bright red and white.

‘Turquoise Lagoon’
An extraordinary combination of pinkish mauve maturing into soft turquoise blue. Very pretty in posies with pinks.

I’ll definitely be growing ‘Bix', ‘Enchanté’, 'Pink Nines’ and ‘Route 66’ again, and I suspect that the others would be more effective with better treatment.

Sadly, since Brexit, Keith is unable to send seed from New Zealand to the UK. However, many of his varieties are available in the UK from English Sweet Peas and from Mr Fothergill’s. In North America try Sweet Pea Gardens.

And you can find out more about Keith’s sweet peas here.

Over at the award-winning Blackberry Garden blog, my friend Alison Levey has also been growing these sweet peas from New Zealand. Check out her report here.

• I’m still waiting for my copy of the new RHS monograph on Lathyrus by Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh, botanist Greg Kenicer and Plant Heritage National Collection holder Roger Parsons. Of course, it includes sweet peas. When it finally arrives, I’ll be discussing it here… It's arrived! It looks stupendous. Review coming...

The Joy of Dahlias by Katja Staring, Linda van der Slot and Marlies Weijers

I like books. I’ve written quite a few, reviewed more and have a house full of them but sometimes the publishers just leave me baffled.

Dahlias are the flower of the moment so when I saw that The Joy of Dahlias by Katja Staring, Linda van der Slot and Marlies Weijers (Terra) was out I asked for a review copy. But, immediately, I saw that something was amiss.

The paper is not coated, slightly shiny, as it is in most books where the pictures are important. So, instead of gleaming off the page, the ink is absorbed, just a little, and the result is dull, no sparks, which wastes the original images; I’m sure they’re better than they look in the book. Presumably the uncoated absorbent paper is less expensive.

The authors, all flower growers themselves, have enlisted the help of a large number of other growers who share their dahlia wisdom, although there’s no list or index of who they are (another thumbs down for the publisher).

Authors are at the mercy of their publishers. Most published gardening authors will have a tale of a change of plan that never filters through to the writer at the keyboard, a deadline mysteriously brought forward, a title changed with no consultation. The result is that slips are missed and things end up on the page that shouldn’t.

I roared when I read this: “Since the beginning of time, the dahlia has grown as a wild plant in the highlands of the area which we now call Mexico.” Hah! “Since the beginning of time!” Oh, please. “In the beginning God created the dahlia.”?!

It’s the publisher’s job, and particularly the copy editor’s job, to tell the authors: “You can’t say that.”

And just to be clear: I’d be hugely embarrassed if some of the things I’ve sent to publishers in a mad hurry had actually made it on to the page.

There are more, but enough’s enough. It’s a very contemporary book, the design is sparky, and all the information presented in bite-sized nuggets by a wide variety of dahlia fanatics. It’s a dahlia book for the Instagram age - and that’s not a criticism at all, it’s praise.

But, again, the publisher has also not helped by pricing the book at £30. OK, you can get it for less on amazon, of course, but Discovering Dahlias by Erin Benzakein, which I reviewed here back in May, is almost exactly the same size, the pictures pop off the page, we know we can trust every word – and its publisher’s price is £18.99.

This could have been a much better book if the publisher had helped the authors as it should have done. And can we please have an index to more than just the recommended varieties?

The Joy of Dahlias by Katja Staring, Linda van der Slot and Marlies Weijers is published by Terra.

Declaration of interest: the book was supplied free of charge by the publisher.

Eastern daisy fleabane - Erigeron annuus

When I lived in Pennsylvania, there was a wild flower that popped up occasionally in open grassy places where the soil was disturbed, sometimes with native rudbeckias. Eastern daisy fleabane was a tall annual with pretty white, yellow-eyed daisy flowers, but I never thought to grow it in the garden.

Then I spotted it – Erigeron annuus - in the Special Plants catalogue, they were listing seedlings and recommending it as a cut flower. So I had to try it. And it’s been brilliant.

After a slow start it’s now reached 1.2-1.5m and it’s been flowering for many weeks. The stems are stiff, the plants branch well, but setting them out 30cm apart proved to be too close as it’s tricky to extract the cut stems from the mass of branched growth without damaging them.

The flowers last well after cutting and make an ideal foamy foil to other flowers and these dainty daisies have a neat spiralled way of opening that repays close inspection in a bouquet. Cut flower growers should give it a try and it would also be good to try in prairie-style plantings.

The Flora of North America tells me that E. annuus is an annual, and it certainly looks like one. Its close relative E. strigosus is reckoned to be an annual or biennial or short-lived perennial. We shall see. I’ll be collecting some seed, and leaving some of it to self sow, and I’ll also be a leaving a few plants to see if they last the winter and re-emerge next spring. I really do suggest you give it a go.

* A month after the above picture, yesterday I took this one - still going strong...

Erigeron annuus, still going srong a month after the first picture, in spite opf being cut for bouquets every few days.

Having been despised as garish and – frankly - the flowers of the lower classes for decades, the rehabilitation of the dahlia began with the very definitely not-at-all working class Christopher Lloyd using them extensively in his garden at Great Dixter, in Sussex.

The dahlia has never looked back and the books have followed. There are three more recent and upcoming dahlia books that I’m going to discuss here over the coming weeks and the first is Floret Farm's Discovering Dahlias by Erin Benzakein.

I’m a big fan of Erin Benzakein. She runs Floret Farm in Washington State and has done more than most to popularise the idea of locally grown, non-industrial cut flowers. She’s gone from a one-woman enterprise to planting twenty acres in just a few years.

I really enjoyed her first book, Floret Farm’s Cut Flower Garden, and reviewed it here in 2017, and now comes another.

This is an inspiring book, but not without its faults. The photography, by Erin’s husband Chris, is immediately striking not just for the awe inspiring views of the cutting fields but for the delightful detail revealed in the close-ups.

The catalogue of Erin’s recommended varieties is arranged by colour and there are, for example, five pages of dahlias in peachy shades – thirty varieties in all – and all shown in huge bunches held by Erin in front of her ubiquitous blue shirt and described in detail. It’s all so tempting that wants lists soon extend to a second page of back-of-the-envelope scribble. And this where things begin to become less convenient.

There’s no list of suppliers of dahlia tubers and/or cuttings in the book. Instead, we’re directed to the Floret Farm website where we must sign up to receive the “Discovering Dahlias Bonus Materials” by email. A great way to collect email addresses. This arrives promptly and includes descriptive details (not just a name and a link) of twenty three American dahlia specialists, seven in Canada, four in mainland Europe - but only two from the UK. Not good.

Three hundred and sixty varieties are included in the directory. I presume they’re all available from American suppliers – frankly, I just don’t have time to check. But I looked up all those peachy varieties in the latest edition of the RHS Plant Finder – which lists all the plants available from British and Irish nurseries, 81,000 of them. Eight of the peach varieties are listed with at least one supplier – twenty two are not listed at all. And if you want to check Erin’s thoughts on varieties you already have on your wants list – forget it: there’s no variety index.

The practicalities are very much based on experience in Washington State and British growers, and growers in other parts of North America, will need to adapt. She assumes you’ll root your cuttings under lights, for example.

So we end up being inspired and tempted and mad keen to add to our dahlia collection – or start one. American readers can, I assume, spark their enthusiasm into action. British and Irish enthusiasts will have quite a lot of work to do.

• Beautiful and inspiring
• A tempting choice of varieties revealed
• Paper and print quality excellent
• Extremely well priced
• Few recommended varieties available in Britain
• Skimpy pest and disease coverage
• Sad absence of a variety index

“Beautiful to look at and genuinely inspiring, but it could do more to help turn inspiration into achievement.”

Floret Farm's Discovering Dahlias by Erin Benzakein is published by Chronicle Books.

Order Floret Farm's Discovering Dahlias in the UK

Order Floret Farm's Discovering Dahlias in North America

Guest post by judywhite

Last year, as garden writers, we were treated to the Burpee seed company's wonderful Advent Calendar, a big cardboard publicity piece that was an instant hit. (Sorry to say it's not available for sale; Burpee should launch a limited edition for holiday purchase.) Instead of a manger or Santa Claus on the cover, there was a snowy image of Burpee's Seed House Barn (below), which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. And instead of chocolate behind each calendar date "window" from December 1st thru Christmas Day, there was a mini-packet of a new variety of Burpee seed to grow.

Burpee is well-known in the States. Founded in 1876, the company has long been a gardening source of new seed hybrids. Their 2016 Advent Calendar (above) featured 25 new varieties, many of which some friends grew for us this summer in a Zone 6 NJ test garden. (Thanks, Dave and Jonathan!)

Some surprises were Canna 'Cannova Rose', a dwarf type that actually did bloom from seed within a few months, and purple cauliflower 'Depurple Hybrid' which, unlike purple potatoes, actually kept its color when cooked. Of the tomatoes, the roma 'Gladiator' was most bountiful, right up to frost, firm and good sauce-making. 'Oh Happy Day' was a sweet, perfect salad tomato, and the Italian pink cherry tomato 'Maglia Rosa' was also excellent. Basil 'Pesto Party' grew well, as did mildly hot Pepper 'Dragon Roll Hybrid,' Eggplant 'Patio Baby,' and variegated Nasturtium 'Orange Troika.' There were a few disappointments: 'Prism' Kale, Pepper 'Gold Standard' and Watermelon 'Mama's Girl' didn't do so well.

This week, we were delighted to again find a Burpee promotional Advent Calendar in the mail. The 2017 cover (above) depicts Burpee's historic Fordhook Farm House decked out in wreaths, with a vintage truck out front. The 25 new varieties in this 2017 calendar include an intriguing green sunflower that's supposed to be great for cut flowers ('Sun-Fill Green'), a yellow Cosmos with white centers ('Lemonade', which did well on trial in England this year), a prolific striped green and gold-bronze small plum tomato ('Shimmer'), and a huge 7"x5" red pepper called 'Stuff Enuff.' Info about their many new varieties can be found on Burpee site.

Burpee's Fordhook Farm, located in Doylestown in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, has Open Days in summers, often thru The Garden Conservancy. The historic buildings and the test gardens are well worth a visit.

I grew some of the new cosmos on my trial ground this summer - with mixed results, I have to say, although some of that was my own fault.

I was especially interested in growing the two new lemony yellow varieties, ‘Xanthos’ and ‘Lemonade’ (above), side by side but also grew ‘Cupcakes’ and ‘Cupcakes White’, ‘Apollo White’ and ‘Capriola’ plus an impressive form of Cosmos atrosanguineus, Eclipse (‘Hamcoec’) which we’ll get to another time.

With ‘Capriola’, I messed up. I put the plants too close to a newly planted, dark-leaved hybrid elder that grew prodigiously, made over 2m high in its first season and bushed out to elbow the cosmos aside.

At the other extreme ‘Cupcakes White’ was superb. It was rather leafy at first, and not as early as ‘Xanthos’, ‘Lemonade’ and ‘Apollo White’, and started flowering at about 90cm with the purest white cups. Some flowers were simply cupped, some had a ring of slim, shorter petals around the golden eye. Lovely.

‘Cupcakes Mixed’ turned out to be mostly white, but with a few flowers in magenta pink or palest rose and one in magenta pink with a crimson center. Not a very effective display, frankly.

‘Apollo White’, and indeed the others in the series, has made its mark in overtaking the Sonata Series as the gold standard in dwarf single cosmos. The whole Apollo Series was superb in the Royal Horticultural Society trial last year. Reaching 50-60cm, ‘Apollo White’ began flowering early but in early October started to collapse for no apparent reason. Still excellent, though.

Now we come to yellow-flowered ‘Xanthos’ and ‘Lemonade’. Basically, they’re the same. OK, British-bred ‘Lemonade’ was a little later into flower, a little leafier at first, perhaps with occasional pink tints slightly more pronounced. But, especially as summer wore on, you’d be hard pressed to say which was which without checking the labels. Both were strong yellow at first, maturing to soft yellow with a white center. Lovely. Dead headed every few days they both flowered well into October.

Next year? 'Cupcakes White' and 'Lemonade' - but I'll have to give them more space, that will be a challenge...

Easy online ordering is a huge boon, but there’s nothing quite like scanning printed catalogs by a winter fire (or in the smallest room in the house) and tagging the tempting plants. And it's too late to order for the coming season.

And you can see from my post-its marking the must-have plants in England’s Cotswold Garden Flowers plant catalog just how many tempting plants there are!

Owner Bob Brown has a fine eye for a good plant, picking out the best of the old favorites, the best newcomers and landing his eye on undeservedly neglected species. Bob also breeds new crocosmias, kniphofias, aconitums, and other plants and his son Ed has some developed some intriguing new Sambucus (elder) varieties.

One of those tags marks a rare hardy (zone 6a) climbing tuberous perennial cucumber I remember from Kew decades ago and have always wanted to grow - Thladiantha dubia. No edible cucumbers unless you have male and female plants, I’m afraid, but well worth growing for its yellow flowers.

And one of Ed’s elders will definitely go on the order: ‘Gate Into Field’ (!) is described as: “A very vigorous elder hybrid, very large heads of pink-flushed deliciously scented flowers later than normal, July – September, dark pink flushed foliage with pale midribs.” OK, it grows to 5m… I’ll just have to knock down the shed to make space, I suppose. Order going in just before I post this – so you don’t grab the last of the plants I’m ordering before I do!

The order to Missouri's Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, who produce the extraordinary Whole Seed Catalog, has already arrived. The catalog is focused on its vast VAST array or heirloom edibles with a smaller section of flowers in the back. The tags only mark the flowers that appeal; I’d already taken out all the veg tags.

Have to say, this is the most astonishing catalog that I’ve ever seen. OK, it costs $9.95 (there’s a smaller free version). But there’s over 350 full color pages packed with goodies. Tomatoes, of course, feature strongly but there are also forty nine different lettuce varieties including the superb red leaved cut-and-come-again lettuce ‘Merlot’. I grew this last year and have ordered it again. It’s deep deep red in color, cuts for many weeks, tastes great and didn’t bolt. The three foot long Armenian melon from the 1400s is quite something, too.

I’ve also ordered the tall double America/African marigolds intended for cutting – never seen those before – and they also have some superb cut flower zinnias too.

Two oh-so-very-tempting catalogs. Here are the details.

Cotswold Garden Flowers
Order a fee printed catalog 
Order online
Plants can be sent to most of Europe but not North America

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Order The Whole Seed Catalog
Order a fee printed catalog
Order online
Seed can be sent anywhere in the world but they make it clear that sending seed to Europe is expensive and difficult.

I’ve just discovered a nemophila I never knew existed! OK, perhaps that’s not the week’s biggest news. But having grown all the other forms of nemophila that have been available over the years, I was surprised not to have come across this one.

But let’s take a step back. What’s so good about nemophila (baby blue eyes) in the first place? Well, it’s one of the few hardy annual flowers that enjoys shade and also enjoys damp soil. The name comes from the Greek meaning, more or less, liking woodland.

These are low, spreading annuals that germinate in the fall in warmer climates (Britain and zone 8 in the North America) and make lush divided foliage to fuel the upward facing bowl shaped spring and summer flowers. Sown in spring, the plants are less lush but still delightful.  

There are eleven species altogether but we generally only see two and most of the varieties are derived from wild forms of Nemophila menziesii, baby blue eyes. I say “derived from”, it seems to me that they’re nothing more than wild forms, selected for uniformity.

* “Baby blue eyes” is the popular Nemophila menziesii, sky blue with a white center; lovely. (above, bottom right)
UK: from Mr Fothergill's US (plants): from Annies Annuals and Perennials US (seeds): from Swallowtail Garden Seeds
* ‘Pennie Black’, 'Penny Black Eye' and ‘Total Eclipse’ are N. menziesii var. discoidalis, with chocolate-black white-edged flowers.  Purple-centered forms are also seen.  (above, top center)
UK: from Special Plants US: from Swallowtail Garden Seeds
* ‘Snowstorm’, “baby white eyes”, ‘Salt and Pepper’ and ‘Freckles’ are N. menziesii var. atomaria, pure white with delicate black spotting. Sometimes the broken lines of spots reach the edge of the petals, sometimes only half way; sometimes they’re purplish blue. The backs of the petals may be lightly blushed in blue.  (above, top right)
UK: from Chiltern Seeds US: from seedaholic.com
* ‘Five Spot’ is a different species, N. maculata, the white flowers have a bright to inky blue or purple spot on each of their five lobes. (above, bottom center)
UK: from Mr Fothergill's US: from Swallowtail Garden Seeds

The one I’ve just discovered is called ‘Snow White’ (above left, and below) - pure white. It seems to be a form of var. atomaria – but with no spots. Looks lovely.
Just one US plant supplier Annie's Annuals and Perennials. And one American seed supplier Eden Brothers. So far, not available in the UK.

And then, of course, I had a look in some old books on annuals to see if there were any more. In addition to those already mentioned, I found:
var. alba has white flowers (sounds like ‘Snow White’).
var. argentea has “white flowers with blue stripes”. Very tempting…
‘Coelestris’ has “white flowers banded in blue”. Banded?
var. crambeoides has “pale blue flowers veined with purple”.
var. discoidalis is described as having “brownish purple, white bordered flowers”.
var. grandiflora has “much larger flowers”.
var. liniflora has “white or pale blue flowers with a black center”. Black with a blue edge!
var. marginata has “pale blue, white bordered flowers”.
var. oculata has “white flowers with a purple center”.
var. purpurea-rubra has “claret-cultured flowers”.
var. vittata has “velvety-black, white bordered flower”.

Not much consistency in the naming of the dark eyed types, as you can see.

There are more species from the western USA, the Flora of California (The Jepson Manual of the Higher Plants of California to give it its suitably dignified proper title) lists another five, and I also came across a trailing species with deep purple flowers, N. aurita, found in California by David Douglas probably in the early 1830s.  But there are precious few references to it these days. If anyone has seed of that...!

So, an intriguing diversion into the delightful nemophilas… I haven’t grown these for a year or two, I’d better get some seed ordered… How big is my garden? Is that all?!

And don't get me started on pink flowered poached egg flower (Limnanthes)!

Images: 'Snowstorm' © Chiltern Seeds. 'Snow White'  © Annie's Annuals and Perennials. Thank you.  Other images © GardenPhotos.com.

Recently I’ve been looking at some plants from long ago and seeing if they’re still around or have been re-invented in recent years. I did some posts about this on my Plant Talk blog for Mr. Fothergill’s: one on striped snapdragons and another on frilly pansies and another on 'Ostrich Plume’ asters.

Then recently I came across the colored engraving (above left) of green-edged petunias and I thought: Pretty Much Picasso! Nothing new under the sun… The engraving is from a German book, Gartenflora, published in 1855, and Pretty Much Picasso (‘BHTUN31501’) was introduced, what six or seven years ago.

The engraving is captioned “garden variety of Petunia violacea” (P. violacea is now P. integrifolia) and looks to be a group of similar, but far from identical, green-edged seedlings. More variation among seedlings was accepted in Victorian times but, at the same time, plants like petunias were also propagated from cuttings which ensured that all the resulting plants were identical.

A hundred and fifty years ago petunias were often grown in conservatories or orangeries because the flowers were so easily damaged by rain; today’s varieties are far more resilient.

Later, growing petunias from cuttings went out of fashion for many many years until the Surfinia trailing types arrived from Japan twenty plus years ago. Now, petunias from both seed and cuttings are of course widely grown – and one such is Pretty Much Picasso, selected in California back in 2007.

But there are still some old petunias that have not yet re-appeared. The dark-veined form with a chocolate and white star pattern (above left) is captioned simply Petunia violacea in the Belgian book from 1867 in which this engraving appeared. But although some chocolate veined varieties, such as Designer Latte (‘Kerlatte’) and Designer Cappuccino (‘Kercappuccino’) from British breeder David Kerley, are now available the combination of dark veins plus a chocolate and white star seems not to have yet been re-invented.

It’s a different story with the frilly and rufffled petunias that were so popular in Victorian times and were available both from seed (below left) and from cuttings. But then, again, these too went out of fashion but were re-invented a few years ago by the British plant breeders Floranova as the seed-raised Frillytunia Series (‘Frillytunia Pink’, below right) in three colors. When these were first introduced they were often greeted as an innovation rather than a re-invention.

Casting an eye over the catalogs and books of the nineteenth century reveals more different petunia types that will, probably sooner rather than later, be re-invented and re-introduced – but with today’s weather resistance and consistency added in.

Making up for my summer break in posting, this is the second of seven daily posts featuring plants that caught my attention this year. Today, the first calendula with white flowers.

Calendula ‘Snow Princess’
The arrival of the PowerDaisy Sunny, the first hybrid between shrubby and annual calendulas, caught everyone’s attention a year or two back and now we have a calendula in a more familiar style but in a new color.

In fact each of the white petals shades into soft yellow towards the base and features a tiny bronze flash at the jagged tip of every petal. The eyes of the large flowers are either gold or deep brown – mine were all dark-eyed but in other plantings I saw they were mixed.

The good people at Thompson & Morgan gave me some advance seed at the end of July, I sowed it in England a few days later and plants were in flower in about nine weeks, bloomed happily through October and they seemed to thrive in spite of a little mildew. When I flew back to the US in November they were looking a little sad but still flowering.

The plants bushed out nicely without pinching and I cut most of the flowers for the house where they lasted well. Next season I’ll be sowing them in March.

Calendula ‘Snow Princess’ was developed in Europe by the Dutch subsidiary of Takii, formerly Sahin BV, who specialized in hardy annuals for many years.

Calendula ‘Snow Princess’ is currently available retail in the UK from many seed companies including Mr. Fothergill’s, and also Suttons and also Thompson & Morgan.

Calendula ‘Snow Princess’ is currently available retail in North America from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.